Grenade

This standard issue grenade has an accurate and sophisticated timer for precision control.

Source: Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense Ufopaedia

Grenade

Size (h x w)

1 × 1

Weight

3

D. Threshold

1 (?) High Explosive

Damage

50 High Explosive

Capacity

1

Sale Price

$240

Research

Purchase Price

$300

Action

TU Cost

Prime Grenade

50%

Throw Grenade

25%

The humble anti-personnel fragmentation Grenade is a cheap indirect-fire weapon with a small area of effect. It is useful for attacking tight groups of enemies, attacking over obstacles, clearing obstacles or attacking around corners.

Like all grenades, it features a special timer where you can set how many half-turns must pass before it will detonate.

Tips

Timers are commonly set to 0 to explode at the end of your turn or 1 to explode at the end of the alien turn.

Will explode before doors close at the end of a turn and catch aliens that have opened any doors.

Throwing grenades will not trigger reaction fire from aliens not facing you.

By exploiting a bug, it can be thrown up through ceilings to explode on the floor above - see here.

Can be thrown into diagonal walls, exploding on the far side.

Primed grenades will not explode in inventory when the timer runs out. It will only detonate when it's on the ground. If you fall unconscious, it will be counted as being on the ground.

Throwing Grenades improve Throwing Accuracy, and also Firing Accuracy when enemies are caught by explosions. All enemies (if not mind controlled) caught in the blast will give experience toward firing accuracy, even if undamaged (i.e., their armor absorbed it) - see Experience.

If several are set to explode on the same turn, the lowest, most north-east grenade will explode first.

Grenade Relay allows soldiers with more Time Units to prime grenades and throw them on to front-line soldiers with less TUs, who then only incur (pickup cost+throw cost) TUs to put the grenade on target. You spend more TUs overall, but the front-line soldier will not have to spend as much.

The last person to throw the grenade gets experience points for the hits; soldiers that only drop or pick it up do not get attribution. If no one has thrown it, your first unit gets the experience - which means it's wasted if your first unit is a tank or a dead soldier! (Tanks always come before soldiers in the unit list)

Kneeling allows you to throw grenades farther under ceilings, landing craft, doorways, etc. Kneel to deploy smoke grenades at the base of your landing ramp on the first turn without exiting the craft.

Grenades and Alien Grenades are excellent for destroying cover in farm and jungle terrain. Farm buildings, hedges, and trees that may be concealing aliens are readily destroyed with a single grenade. Another trick is to remove the roofs of buildings using an agent in a flying suit to reveal aliens on upper stories.

Grenades, especially armed ones, are best stored in your shoulder or belt slots for quick retrieval during combat, costing a mere 3 and 4 TUs respectively to move into either hand slot.